Floating Point Numbers - Computerphile
Why Hacker News recommends it
Recommended as a simple, fun explanation of why floating point gives odd errors like 0.1 + 0.2.
What it is
Tom Scott explains for Computerphile how floating point numbers work, why moving the binary point is fast, and why it handles money badly.
Recommended by 2 HN commenters across 2 different months, 2015 to 2023.
What Hacker News said
Recommends felipesabino · 2015-11 · on “0.30000000000000004”
Recommended: Floating Point Numbers - Computerphile [this video] Tom Scott's fun and simple take on Floating Points is a good video explaining why such weird errors happen
Recommends microwavecamera · 2017-06 · on “Why do programming languages suck at math?”
Short answer, no decimal in binary and math is hard. :) Here's a couple handy videos explaining it: [this video] [LINK]
Cites mercxry · 2023-10 · on “Why you should probably be using SQLite”
You should still not use MONEY in Postgres, even their own website says so [1]. I still wouldn't use floats/numerics/decimals to store currency either in any db generally, as said by others you're going to end up with inaccurate numbers [2]. Therefore using integers is in fact very good for this use-case, especially if you are in accounting or book-keeping! Source: I work for a Fintech company that processes millions of payments. [1] [LINK] [2] [this video]